Is the Australian Navy hopeless? (Podcast) 

Not just the navy, the whole ADF had been under funded for 20 years. It is in a sad state.

Having a hopeless defence minister is a good start

Place waiting for you in the Navy, anytime you two wanna join, Claire and Cameron!

One may not have noticed, though AUSTRALIA is an island. The largest. We are girthed by sea. In my 63 years I still have not fathomed why our Navy is not larger and more capable. Our defence planners have got it wrong for so long. Until now. AUKUS is what we desperately need. Power projection to keep any adversary a long way away or in their home ports. AUKUS bring it on. Bring it on quick.

wrong way. should upgrade the existing fleets with anti-drone capability. how difficult that would be?

Sack general Campbell

Very shameful for everyone in Australia poor quality shameful defence must be stronger protecting all people in Australia

If you want to build ships in Australia using overseas IP then your talking years to delivery. A smarter country would have the hulls built overseas (cheaper labour rates) but do systems integration in Australia (higher level skills and through life support).

Everyone seems to forget the Hunters are specialist sub hunters that we are trying to turn into a general frigate, we need them as sub hunters and another type if frigate for the general duties

We need serious action. Australia is in a very good position to solve the problems that we are facing. We must change our strategies and optimise for modernising and replacing our current systems. Unless we make these new changes, we will fall even further behind.

Oh we helped, we sent six service people! That was generous and made a huge difference I’m sure! 😂 As for the size and capability of our navy our governments of both federal sides cannot seem to have a continuous process of funding and development of capability such as ship building and training. It has been a stop start process for decades. Something needs to change and it has to be bipartisan. As to how on earth we will staff the AUKUS boats, well that’s a quantum leap totally!

coming from a merchant marine background I can say that it's hard to get young people to want to spend months on a ship with slow internet. I wonder how fast the internet is for the Australian sailors? A regular sluggish ships satelite internet costs around $10K a month.

The Hunters should have been canceled altogether and replaced with the Navantia F-110 with OZ spec equipment and the flight three destroyer from Navantia as well.

The navy has determined it needs to be as competent as the elected Gov of the day.

Old weapons shit protecting nothing and no life's shameful for everyone in Australia

Wow and I thought we had issues in the states, thanks Australia for making me feel a thousand times better about our defensive capabilities, at leased I know that we won't be first to be invaded. What kind of dysfunctional government leads an island nation to not have a viable navy is beyond me.

The ADF if not hopeless - but it is tiny. And that is normal for the ADF except during the 2 world wars. We just dont want to spend the amount required for a larger ADF. Because we have been lucky.

The Hunter class is a disaster provoked by a need to help the brexited British economy. The selection process was biased and now the RAN is paying for it. NAVANTIA's solutions are well beyond expectations, but they are Spaniards and not british... so sad 😂😂😂 By the way, Spain has been building state-of-the-art battleships for centuries. 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸

My prediction on the Frigate selection is this. Alpha 3000 not in the contention, it is a paper tiger and should be dropped. Daegu, this is resource hungry 140 crew. Low endurance 4500nm, only 16VLS. All this needs to change. To change this is too hard to do quickly. Meko A200: Great range 7200nm, 120 crew, design is mature. 10-18 month build. VLS needs to be upgrade to 24/32 cells. There is space. There is space to hold more than 8 SSM as well. Mogani: Range unknown, 90 crew, VLS needs to be upgrade to 24/32 cells, 15 month build time. Has facility for UUV and USV. Politically a good choice. So I believe that it will be between the Meko and the Mogani. Both need more VLS, at least 8 cells need to Tactical length. We are going to see more coordinated saturation attacks on ships in the future, refer to Red Sea/Black Sea. So the frigate solution will need better CIWS(2+). Need to standardise on the 30mm canon, get rid of the 25mm. This provides compatibility with the Army canons. Good to see the Arafuras being used for the border security. The LOSV need to be 64cell VLS units with good CIWS (2+) and the ability to land a SH60. How else do you plan to transfer maintenane pople in the event of a breakdown.

well maybe if we didnt import everything and actually had a manufacturing industry it wouldnt be to bad !!!

No. How dare you. They are not useless. They do really cool shows every year where they dress up and march in lines.

The decision results in cost savings for Labor and pushing a delivery out 10 years so they aren't accountable. Where is the Barracuda money now? We should have bought a 4th AWD in September

What Navy!

Yes 😪

If you have the time to take the piss out of the services how about you help out with recruiting for them instead. Information like this will only drive people away from the military. Yes you may have shown some light on the issues but you haven’t helped to fix have you. Why not take all that knowledge of and help them recruit so the numbers are there so we can put those ships in the water.

This a close as Marles has come to a military uniform..walking alongside someone with one on.

Bottom line is with a population base of only 27.7 million with only 13.6 million taxpayers the country cannot afford or even build a bigger defence force. The numbers dont lie. The should have embrace nuclear submarine technology back in the 80's and we would have had 35+ years operating experience already established. Now that they have decided to go the nuclear route and their late to the party having warheads available and not easily detected is how to do it but that is still over 10 years away. They want a deterrent force inplace quickly and the easiest and fastest way with minimum manpower is ICBM's. You dont have to use them but you do have them. Ship wise. . . Stop chasing a unicorn platform and get some good condition used Arleigh Burkes right now to fill the gap then start a continuous trickle feed of built one at a rate of one every 3 years then you will maintain a skillset workforce and you will always have platforms that are new arriving as older assets are retired.

Not if they stick to their guns...no pun intended and follow through on building an effective navy Navy is firstly deterrent .....the aukus agreement has far reaching positive consequences ..see the redulting Chinese ijitial response was alarm at havong the distance retaliatory strike gap that has existed for years with a navy that is way under weaponised so China has been for years a potential open door if they chose to......what we see here is the chance to really beef up strike and defence capability zcross naval ships not half hearted "built for " but not equipped naval purchases Point is Aus needs to stick go a plan znd not jump around like ig has with french subs...i would recommed sill buying 9 - 12 hunter beefed up with recent weapons options remember the original plan gor awd destroyers was for 72 cells not 48 we settled for ...go gor it the more Australia pushes the boat oug on tjis the greater the deterrence China will face and we wont have their fishing boats or worse pestering our eec zones like Chile has at preeent ...China will think twice A humble Aussie abroad point of view

upgrade the Anzac ships with Israeli weapon systems

She'// be roight, its peacetime.

The CDF and all three Chiefs or the respective services need to go. They are useless and nothing but Politicians in Uniform.

Hopeless…?? Have you Aussies seen Canada’s Navy…??

I love my navy

No mention of AUKUS in all this, what with the cost of 1 sub estimated to be $12Million dollars a day x by 4 to 8 subs, for 35 yearseven a blind Freddy can see the outcome SHHHHHHHhhhhhhh Don't tell Marles

What bullshit.